The Big One will be tenfold uglier, say experts in meteorology, emergency management, insurance and drainage.

A massive, sluggish hurricane - it doesn't even have to be a Category 5 - glides off the Gulf of Mexico, its eye focused on Jefferson County's coastline or High Island.

Hour after hour of moaning, sandblasting winds thrash towering pines and broad oaks into submission until they keel under the force, crushing anything and anyone below them and slicing the region's power grid.

Pieces of even the sturdiest homes and businesses lift with ease and take flight, poking neighboring buildings. Windows don't stand a chance.

Then comes the water.

After piling up for days in advance, as if by command, the Gulf waters charge inland.

By this time, Sabine Pass has been underwater for hours.

The Gulf water finds any opening it can - up the Sabine and Neches Rivers and the branching bayous and canals already filled with hours of the kind of deluging rains most of the area can't take for several minutes in an ordinary summer thunderstorm.

The sturdy man-made hurricane protection system - the fortress averaging 16 feet high surrounding Port Arthur and Mid-County that has held every other surge at bay - holds firm until the 22-foot mound of water tops it, drowning its pumps.

Bayous on Beaumont's south side funnel waters along Interstate 10, rolling over College Street.

By the time the Gulf finishes making its new temporary coastline, Nome is the only Jefferson County town totally high and dry.

Most of Beaumont - everything along the river and west of Dowlen Road, south of Lucas Drive, all of downtown, Old Town, South Park, Pear Orchard, The Avenues - are underwater.

The rest of the region's map doesn't fare much better. Uprooted marsh grasses and mucky silt mixed with raw sewage and chemicals cloak all of Orange County except Mauriceville and a sliver along the Jasper and Newton county borders.

The Sabine rushes into Deweyville homes.

Meanwhile winds gnaw at everything above the watery world's surface. They continue on as the storm marches north, ripping a gash through the piney hills of East Texas, spreading hurricane-force gusts across Oklahoma and Arkansas.

The waters slowly return to the Gulf leaving behind to rot in city streets the carcasses of the animals that couldn't get out of the way quickly enough.

Every sewage plant is useless, vomiting their untreated contents into the stagnant mess. Water plants, too, as salt overwhelms their systems making everyday basics like bathing or drinking impossible for days, if not weeks.

The refineries and chemical plants that employ thousands and drive the region's economy are knocked out of commission - possibly for months.

The storm would combine the worst of the worst Southeast Texas has already seen.

It would take its storm surge cues from the same plays Hurricane Carla used to sack the region in 1961 and Ike in 2008; the splintering force of Rita's winds in 2005; and the unending, neighborhood-drowning downpours from Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 and Category 1 Hurricane Cindy in 1963.

If it hadn't been for some last-minute wobbles to the east, Rita would have done this instead of sinking Cameron Parish.

It's the kind of scenario nightmares are made of for Phil Kelley, manager for Jefferson County Drainage District No. 7.

With Rita, initial predictions were for a surge of more than 20 feet if the storm's center made landfall west of Jefferson County.

Ike's forecast was between 20 and 24 feet, Kelley said.

The region's only saving grace would be if atmospheric conditions were just right to quickly move a monster storm through.

"It would take water coming over for a long time to actually make a pond out of the place," Kelley said.

If that happened, there's no doubt the destruction would be complete and widespread: Thousands of homes with structural and water damage, miles of washed out roads and thousands of displaced people.

The next phase would be the insurance industry's nightmare.

Rita's tally totaled about $10 billion, and the Insurance Council of Texas estimates about $3.2 billion of that was insured losses. Ike's hit racked up $12.3 billion in insured losses.

If a doomsday storm is massive enough to severely impact Southeast Texas and the millions of residents in the Houston-Galveston area - similar to Ike but even more massive - damage could easily reach tens of billions of dollars, said Mark Hanna, spokesman for the Insurance Council of Texas.

Insurance companies base their rates and their futures on a given area's past, so they always make sure they have plenty of money for claims, Hanna said.

If a damage tally goes too high - or if a catastrophic storm hits during a season with other expensive disasters - Hanna said there's the fear of what he called "the domino effect."

Insurance companies belong to guaranty associations, or groups that allow other companies to backup an insurance company that runs out of money to pay claims.

One company goes down. All of its claims are shifted to others. Those companies are already paying out money on claims from their customers when they take on extra claims so they all deplete their resources.

"That's the last thing you want your insurance company to say: 'We're sorry, we went under. We can't help you,'" Hanna said.

When - not if - the region's nightmare storm approaches, the best thing to do is to get out of the way.

Even with adequate defenses for Jefferson County, nothing could stop the disastrous chain of events that would happen if the region's levees were overtopped, Jefferson County Emergency Management Coordinator Greg Fountain said.

"The best thing you can do is instill in people the importance of an evacuation order," Fountain said. "It's something we don't take lightly in the region."

Despite the destruction of the Bolivar Peninsula and Bridge City, Ike actually was only a close call thanks to last-minute changes within the storm, said Jonathan Brazzell, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Lake Charles, La.

As Ike intensified upon reaching landfall, it contracted in size, much as ice skaters spin faster by pulling their extremities closer to their bodies.

"If that consolidation had not taken place it probably would have gone over the (Port Arthur) sea wall," he said.

The odds are there each hurricane season, he said.

"It's eventually going to happen," Brazzell said. "It's just a matter of time."